


Fallen Prince

by sourcheeks



Category: Professional Wrestling, World Wrestling Entertainment, 新日本プロレス | New Japan Pro-Wrestling
Genre: Backstory, Demon Finn Balor | Prince Devitt, Gap Filler, Kayfabe Compliant, Other, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-05
Updated: 2018-09-05
Packaged: 2019-07-07 07:39:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15903837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sourcheeks/pseuds/sourcheeks
Summary: The demon comes when Fergal will say yes.It doesn't understand why he keeps saying no.





	Fallen Prince

The demon came to him first when he was seven years old, crying in his bedroom. A weight settled at the foot of his bed, and Fergal looked up, thinking it was one of his parents.

A twisted, soot-black thing sat in front of him, covered in jagged teeth. Fergal didn’t scream, just sniffled and wiped his eyes. “You aren’t my mam.”

“They hurt you.” The thing trailed a clawed finger along Fergal’s cheek. It wiped away the dirt, but not the pain the Fergal knew meant a bruise. “Didn’t they?”

“I fell at school.”

“They pushed you down.”

“They’re bigger than me.” Fergal shrugged, chewing on the sleeve of his jumper. “So that means I get pushed down sometimes.”

“Not if you let me help you.” The thing took Fergal’s little jaw in Its massive, clawed hand. “Don’t you want me to make you stronger?”

Fergal didn’t pull back. He thought for a long moment. “But that isn’t fair. You’re bigger than them.”

“That’s what makes it fair, little one.” The thing’s face twisted into something like a smile. “Do you know what I am?”

“I dunno. A tooth monster?” Fergal’s mam told him stories, but he hadn’t yet learned the story of Balor - he knew about leprechauns, and not to go in faerie rings, but he knew nothing about the Fomori.

“Very close, little one.” The thing laughed, and it was a high, dry sound, like wood squeaking on wood. “Let me help you.”

“I don’t need any help.”

The thing was gone.

 

Fergal was sent home early from school the next day. He’d told the boys who had pushed him down about the ‘tooth monster,’ and drawn him a picture his teacher said was “highly disturbing” when he didn’t understand.

* * *

 

He was fifteen the next time Balor came to him, and the urge to accept his offer was definitely there. Once again, Balor came when he was battered and bruised.

“You’ve had a rough day, little one.” Its clawed fingers once again dug into Fergal’s chin.

“I’m not feckin’ little.” Fergal jerked his head back. “And I know who you are, now.”

“Then you know that I can help you.”

“I know you might kill me. Use me up and then leave me a drained-out husk.” _But,_ but. It might really want to help Fergal. Might really want him to succeed.

Fergal couldn’t let himself think that way. He shook his head, starting to get up, but Balor grabbed his wrist.

“Let me join you. This is your birthright, Finn.”

“My name is Fergal.”

“Fergal is no name for a warrior.”

“There’s nothing wrong with Fergal.” He crossed his arms. “It means ‘courageous.’”

The demon laughed Its squeaky wooden laugh. “Courageous, yes. You are courageous. And a bit stupid, too, McCul.”

Fergal snorted, shaking his head. “Man, you have the wrong guy. I’m no Fin McCul.”

“That’s what you think.” The demon tightened Its grip on Fergal’s wrist. “You cannot deny your birthright forever, Fergal Devitt.”

Fergal shrugged. “I dunno. I gotta die sometime.”

* * *

The Bullet Club was Fergal’s crowning achievement, his _gaijin_ NWO, his mark on the world of wrestling. The night he turned his back on Taguchi, Balor visited him again.

“This is a hotel room, you know,” Fergal said when he found Balor in his bed. “You’ll get soot on the sheets.”

“You turned on your brother.”

“And you’ve come to give me my divine punishment, or whatever?” Fergal sat at the foot of the bed.

Balor took his hand in Its claw. “I have come to congratulate you, Prince Devitt.”

“My answer is still no.” Fergal smiled a bit. “But you know that, don’t you?”

“The time is coming, little prince.” The demon smiled, or at least Fergal thought it was a smile, Its mass of teeth shifting crudely upwards. “Coming fast.”

“Then why waste your time here, if you know what I’ll say?”

“No one changes their destiny, Fergal Devitt. Not even me.” The demon is gone, then, leaving nothing but ash-black streaks on Fergal’s skin and the dingy green hotel duvet.

* * *

After Okada defeats him, Fergal feels lost. He’d poured his soul into the match. He thought he might fucking die. He wishes he would. Anything to avoid the crushing shame and regret.

Of fucking course Balor would be here.

“I don’t want to talk to you,” Fergal said to the mirror, which was where Balor was, a hunched monster in the vague shape of Fergal, who was trying to wipe off his fucking paint, which wasn’t easy when he _couldn’t fucking see himself._ He resisted the urge to punch the mirror. “Please go away.”

“Has that ever worked?”

“I’m not in the mood for you.”

“You’re in the exact mood.” Balor lost the shape of him, sitting cross-legged on the reflection of the counter and giving Fergal his mirror image back. “He beat you. He shamed you. You let him dishonor you.”

 _You let him dishonor you._ It settles in Fergal’s belly like a rock. “We all have to lose sometimes.”

“You wouldn’t have lost if I was with you.”

“What is it with you? What’s so special about me?”

“I told you, McCul. I am your birthright.”

Fergal actually did punch the mirror then, feeling violent enough to be pissed it didn’t break, but knowing it would have sucked even worse for him if he did. “Stop fucking saying that!”

“I can make you powerful,” Balor promised. “You don’t ever have to lose again.”

“It doesn’t matter. I can’t ever come back here. I can’t ever take back the Bullet Club. What’s the point?”

That’s when the demon sealed the deal. Because, birthright aside, It knew that It had to manipulate Devitt, to tell him what he needed to hear. “Prince Devitt lost the match. But with me, you will not be Prince Devitt any longer.” It reached out of the mirror, extending a clawed hand to Fergal. “Prince Devitt is outcast - but _Finn Balor,_ yes, Finn Balor can conquer some distant land, and return a champion, and he can defeat the Rainmaker. _We_ can defeat the Rainmaker. All you have to do is take my hand.”

Fergal hesitated. He slid his hand into Balor’s, squeezing. “Anything it takes.”

He felt the change down to the atom. It felt like he was being electrocuted from the bones outward. He screamed, feeling phantom hands clench over his mouth to silence the sound. Fergal Devitt did not meet his own eyes when he looked into the mirror - it was his eyes, in his face, but it was a stranger that he saw.

“Finn Balor,” he said, trying the name. “I am Finn Balor. I will not be disgraced again.”

 _Good,_ said Balor’s meat-grinder growl, coming from deep in Fergal’s soul - but it was Finn’s soul, now.

“This is my birthright,” Finn said, and the confidence behind the words comes easy.

 _You are not a prince any longer_.

Finn smiled in the mirror. Yes - _yes_. He was not a prince any longer.

“Now I am the King.”


End file.
